Storyelling project to uncover fascinating everyday yarns

WHEN Toowoomba youths Ciara Condren and Evi Ruz secured themselves an Australian Research Council grant, they could have done plenty of things to advance their future careers.

What they chose to do was a link with a number of other people and provide a community service instead.

The group is set to launch the Storyelling Project today, which is all about collecting the stories of ordinary people from across the Toowoomba area in one place as a celebration of community.

Storyelling also doubles as a research project, with USQ PhD student Sarah Peters keeping tabs on that side of things.

Ms Condren said the group hoped Storyelling would connect residents of Toowoomba in new ways.

"We decided we wanted to make a website to bring Toowoomba together and we decided the best way to do that was collecting and sharing stories about ordinary people in the community," she said.

"It's something younger people can get in on, but it also fosters the interest of older people.

"It's connection. Simple as that."

And with similar projects like Humans of New York garnering the interest of people worldwide, it's easy to see how common it is for nearly anyone to have an interesting anecdote which people find fascinating.

Ms Condren said there were plenty of ways to tell a story, whether it was written, documented in photographs or recorded as audio or video, and each member of the team would be contributing their individual skill sets to create the site.

"We hope after our launch on Friday that people will come and say 'I want to do a story' or 'I want to tell my story' and we will be aiming for four new stories every month," Ms Condren said.

"We'd love to get some freelancers on board sending us things as well."